High capacitance organic field-effect transistors with modified gate insulator surface

Abstract

In this paper, we report on flexible, high capacitance, pentacene, and regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (rr-P3HT) organic field-effect transistors fabricated on metallized Mylar films. The gate insulator, Al2O3, was prepared by means of anodization. We show that covering the anodized gate insulator with an octadecyltrichlorosilane self-assembled monolayer or apoly(α-methylstyrene) capping layer has the same effect on carrier mobility as for thermally grown silicon oxide. In addition, temperature-dependent measurements of mobility were performed on transistors fabricated with and without modification of the gate dielectric. In the case of both the pentacene and the rr-P3HT transistors, the μ(T) behavior shows that the cause of the mobility enhancement through surface modification is not a reduction in the level of energetic disorder (σ in Bässler’s model), as in the case of the fully amorphous organic semiconductor poly(triarylamine) [Veres et al., Adv. Funct. Mater. 13, 199 (2003)]. It appears that the surface modification improves mobility by changing the morphology of the semiconducting films.